Emerald City/Emily
In Emily & Edmond Elephant's fanon, the Emerald City is a metropolitan area, as well as a city, that is located on the eastern coast of the River Island of Matthew. The city consists of 3 boroughs (Grande-Ville, Góra Wolności, and Bradford), all of which are further divided into 30-60 neighborhoods, whilst the metropolitan area consists of the city itself and all surrounding suburbs. To prevent confusion between the two different areas in colloquial speech, however, the metropolitan area is referred to by the Matthewish as the 'Emerald Metropolis'. With an estimated population of 6.88 million people as of the May 2019 population census when combined with the Emerald City's surrounding suburbs, the metropolitan area is the most populous on the River Island of Matthew, as well as the country's capital city. Geography Architecture and art The metropolitan area of the Emerald City (including its namesake city) was created by the Matthewish government in 2001; the city itself has been conceived by the general public to have a mix of neo-classic and contemporary architecture and art. Due to the public support that has been considered in rebuilding the city from scratch following the 1911 Emerald City fire that destroyed almost the entire original city (which was started as a settlement in 1788), the local press has called the modern city a 'great compromise between green and gray': 57% of the current metropolitan area consists of greenery, with the remaining 43% made for metropolitan development. During building planning and construction, many factors are considered, including the weather, crust movements, and creativity. According to a 2016 survey by the local magazine Emerald Plus, these three factors are known to be the most important to the general public, as well as soundproofing mechanisms (including noise barriers). This is because the latest Matthewish architectural regulations, signed into national legislation on June 18, 2012, require five noise barriers to be built within the walls, laid on top of each other. Boroughs The Emerald City is divided into three boroughs, with the borough of Grande-Ville being the most populous of them (with 70% of the 2018 population estimate living there as of July 2019), despite being less spacious than other boroughs within the city. These boroughs are divided further into urban areas such as Midville (the central portion of the borough of Grande-Ville) and Upper Kingswell (the southernmost urban area of the borough of Bradford that shares its southern border with the northern limits of the Emerald City-Kingswell International Airport). Urban planning As a result of the Hermann-West urbanization concept being used in adding character to the Emerald City itself, there has been an extremely high level of urban planning since 1966 after reaching a final agreement with the Matthewish government and the general public in 1965 to rebuild the city from scratch. This includes the construction of the Trans-Metropolitan Subway mass transit system, as well as hiring architecture-specialized groups such as the Peppish Novaclass Group (specializing in neo-classic architecture). However, by the time the New Emerald City Hall, as well as the downtown portion of the borough of Grande-Ville, started construction in early 1967, a group of anti-gentrification protesters from Kingswell (then using a Polish-language name) walked down the King's Trail (the road that the 6th runway at the Emerald City's main airport was built on) to protest against the construction work taking place. Economy The Emerald City is regarded by the general public as both the official and financial capital of the River Island of Matthew, especially due to the 94-floor Empresario Plaza, completed in 2003 and inspired by contemporary architecture and art, which is referred colloquially as the 'tower that marks the financial center of the Emerald City' and also the tallest financial-use tower on the River Island of Matthew. Its economic significance increased significantly by 78% during the 2009-11 Matthewish economic boom and has been growing steadily since, with the New Emerald City Hall reporting a 55% growth in the factor for the city during the third quarter of 2018. Despite this, the city remains regarded as 'the most economically significant in the country' by local media outlets. The city's two most exported products are artboards and silverware, whilst its most imported product is cooking oil. This is a result of the 2003 Peppaversal Exhibition that took place at Latourette Plaza, which popularized the ideology of exporting silverware made locally to other countries in the Peppaverse, as well as artboards. As of November 1, 2019, the largest local manufacturer of silverware within the Emerald City based on its average daily manufacturing volume is Gobble Industries, which rose to nationwide fame in the summer of 1985 with the following slogan – "Don't let your silverware go down on you" (in Polish: Nie pozwól, by twoje sztućce spadły na ciebie). Modernization The Matthewish government announces plans to modernize the Emerald City every 9 years using the 'Jellycamp concept' practice, which has been done in this instance since the year 1990; as a result, the city has been given the highest level possible in the Modern Cities Survey consecutively each year, since 2003. There are examples where the 'Jellycamp concept' can be seen, such as the fashion-themed Tour de la Mode, a 52-floor multi-use building in the northwestern part of the borough of Bradford that opened in its modernized form from the basements to the highest occupiable floor in 2017. The latest modernization plan, titled the Emerald City Modernization Plan of 2018, was released on June 18, 2018, and includes the temporary closure of the Latourette Plaza (a 16-floor shopping mall built of neo-classic architecture and art on the grounds of the original Emerald City Hall in the early 1980s as part of the 1981 modernization plan) for modernization, which began on December 17, 2018, and ended on June 1, 2019. Only the front facade, elevators, escalators and signs were modernized as part of the plan; the rest had been slated to remain the same. Transportation Rail The Emerald City is served by the Matthewrail Capital line, which begins at the station of Nordpasse in the uptown part of the borough of Grande-Ville. A station that opened in 2001 as part of the Emerald City Modernization Plan of 1990, the new station replaces the previous Matthewrail station in the downtown part, which became congested in terms of expansion space by 1987. The Trans-Metropolitan Subway also serves the city, but with more stations within the area than Matthewrail. It currently has 8 lines, all of which are identified by different colors. Driving The Emerald City's vehicle traffic was on the right, similar to the rest of the country before 2002, the year the Urban Driving Act of 2002 went into effect. Since June 10, 2002, all traffic within the city, as well as other Matthewish cities, is on the right-hand side; the countryside drives on the left-hand side. At all vehicle entry points into the metropolitan area of the same name, all signs read on both sides as follows: 'Lane change here - please drive onto the other side and keep driving right/left once you are in the city/countryside'. (In Polish, the signs read as follows: Zmiana pasa ruchu tu-proszę, przejdź na drugą stronę i kontynuować ruch w prawo / w lewo, jak tylko będziesz kontynuować ruch w miasto / wies.) Despite these warning signs, there have been relatively few incidents on driving on the wrong lane around the metropolitan area of Emerald City, when compared to Sutch roads (roads located within the borders of the Suzylands). For example, a 23-year-old drunk driver was fined on charges of violating the Urban Driving Act of 2002 (especially the section requesting that drivers change lanes when exiting and/or entering urban areas) on August 30, 2016, at the entrance near Lower Kingswell. In the same year, a 65-year-old driver was sentenced to a year and 3 months in prison for driving on the left lane within the downtown section of the borough of Grande-Ville.